Well,

Last night got a phone call from my brother "You know that rattling noise coming from my engine", well it turns out it was has cambelt slowly shredding and it finally expired yesterday.

Does anyone know if the ecotec engine is an interference engine, ie. is the engine now wrecked, or as he is hoping that the pistons, and valves are non interfering thus all he needs is a new cambelt?.

Anyone know what an M reg cavalier with a wrecked engine might be worth?

Well' date='

Last night got a phone call from my brother "You know that rattling noise coming from my engine", well it turns out it was has cambelt slowly shredding and it finally expired yesterday.

Does anyone know if the ecotec engine is an interference engine, ie. is the engine now wrecked, or as he is hoping that the pistons, and valves are non interfering thus all he needs is a new cambelt?.

Anyone know what an M reg cavalier with a wrecked engine might be worth?[/quote']

Think it's non-interference - I used to have a 2-litre Vectra which had suffered a broken cambelt with the previous owner :( The garage bill left with the car showed towage charges and the cost of a new cambelt and tensioner, but no charges for removing the head, replacing valves, etc

As for an M-reg Cavalier with a wrecked engine? Well, an N-reg Vectra with a wrecked engine was worth feck all..............

My father had a cambelt go in a Cavalier. Destroyed the engine, but it was a diesel.

What size engine is it? - all their petrol engines are ecotec.

The Ecotec engine is an interference engine, but unless it breaks at really high revs you usually get away with it. The valvegear seems to take up a neutral position when the belt breaks. I had belts break on a couple of my Cavaliers, and never took out a valve or piston. I think the current recommendation is for changes every 40,000 miles.

HTH,

Phil

Well my folks had a 95 Mreg 2.2 ecotek frontera and when the GR50 plastic pulley snapped, there was definately interference!!!!

Well my folks had a 95 Mreg 2.2 ecotek frontera and when the GR50 plastic pulley snapped, there was definately interference!!!!

:agree:

This is precisely the reason why Vauxhall cut the cambelt change interval from 80K miles to 40K miles on some of their cars a few years ago.

Vauxhall also had a well publicised problem (with plastic pulleys IIRC) which resulted in a fair few engine deaths....

However, when a car had done less than 40k they didn't think to swap it based on age, my folks had only done 36k in 8years, so it never had it's pulley changed....until it went bang.

..ah well, is long gone now, they have just changed to an L&K octy!

Vauxhall cambelts on the Ecotec should be changed every 40k OR 4 years.

I worked on Vauxhall for around three and a half years in total, I left to go to Audi because i got bored stupid of rebuilding cylinder heads on cars that had shot thier cambelt.

Ecotec with broken cambelt, deffo bent valves and they usually crack the guides when the bent valve goes back up into the head.

I think he has decided to scrap the car. Now the fun starts, remove anything that might be of value to sell on before arranging for the collection of whats left of the car from his house.

Well' date='

Last night got a phone call from my brother "You know that rattling noise coming from my engine", well it turns out it was has cambelt slowly shredding and it finally expired yesterday.

Does anyone know if the ecotec engine is an interference engine, ie. is the engine now wrecked, or as he is hoping that the pistons, and valves are non interfering thus all he needs is a new cambelt?.

Anyone know what an M reg cavalier with a wrecked engine might be worth?[/quote']

We had a very early Corsa GSi 1.6L 16v engine 23k miles cambelt tensioner failed pulling out of Tescos car park on a bank holiday Monday, very handy as the supermarket was almost next door to the supplying dealer

Think the result was a replacement head as a few of the valve stems bent.